Open Science & Libraries 2021: 21 Tips for Conferences, Barcamps & Co.

After the Corona Year 2020 threw the event industry off track worldwide, event organisers have adapted to the “new normal” in 2021 and developed new digital formats. The advantage: the event world has become smaller. Events that used to take place out of reach in Sydney or Bangkok can now often be attended conveniently from the home office.

Many organisers have also used the year to rethink their event prices, reduce fees or eliminate them altogether – which is entirely in the spirit of the Open Science idea. That is why it was not difficult for us to put together a list of conferences, workshops, barcamps and other events that you should not miss in 2021.

JANUARY 2021

Open Science Barcamp
14.01.21, Online-Event
“A session in the series leading up to the Netherlands National Open Science Festival on February 11th 2021.”
Organised by: National Platform Open Science Netherlands

Webinar Serie: German-Dutch dialogue on the future of libraries: Sustainability and libraries – agenda 2030
18.01.21, Online-Event
“Libraries are not only sustainable institutions per se, but they also make an intensive contribution to raising awareness of the need for a sustainable society. To this end they provide information, organize projects and support sustainable engagement. Why libraries in the Netherlands and in Germany play an important social role here, how they can contribute to this and what examples are available will be presented and discussed. How the international library associations like IFLA and EBLIDA support this global challenge will also be a topic in this online-seminar.”
Organised by: Erasmus University Library Rotterdam

ALA Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits
22.01.21 – 26.01.21, Online-Event
“Symposium on the Future of Libraries, offering sessions on future trends to inspire innovation in libraries, “News You Can Use” with updates that highlight new research, innovations, and advances in libraries.”
Organised by: American Library Association

PIDapalooza 2021: The Open Festival of Persistent Identifiers
27.01.21, Online-Event
“Festival of persistent identifiers. Sessions around the broad theme of PIDs and Open Research Infrastructure.”
Organised by: CDL, Crossref, DataCite, NISO and ORCID

FEBRUARY 2021

Education for Data Science
07.02.21 – 09.02.21, Jerusalem (Israel)
“How Data Science should be taught in academic institutions and what kind of training and retraining can help support the need for new professionals in the data science ecosystem.”
Organised by: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, CODATA

Fake News: Impact on Society 4/4
08.02.21, Online-Event
“This event offers research into the concept of fake news and its impact in modern society:
Strengthening information literacy in the time of COVID-19: the role and contributions of the National Library of Singapore. News analytics in LIS Education and Practice.”
Organised by: News Media, Digital Humanities, FAIFE, and CLM

Open Science Festival
11.02.21, Online-Event
“Open Science stands for the transition to a new, more open and participatory way of conducting, publishing and evaluating scholarly research. Central to this concept is the goal of increasing cooperation and transparency in all research stages. The National Open Science Festival provides researchers the opportunity to learn about the benefits of various Open Science practices. It is a place to meet peers that are already working openly or that are interested to start doing so. Key to this day is sharing knowledge and best practices.”
Organised by: NPOS project Accelerate Open Science

Barcamp Open Science 2021
16.02.21, Online-Event
“Discussing and learning more about, and sharing experiences on practices in Open Science.”
Organised by: Leibniz Research Alliance Open Science

Open Science Conference 2021
17.02.21 – 19.02.21, Online-Event
“This conference will especially focus on the effects and impact of (global) crises and associated societal challenges, such as the Corona pandemic or the climate change, to open research practices and science communication in the context of the digitisation of science. And vice versa, how open practices help to cope with crises. Overall, the conference addresses topics around Open Science such as: Effects and impact of current crises on open research practices and science communication – Learnings from crises to sustainably ensure the opening of science in the future – Innovations to support Open Science practices and their application and acceptance in scientific communities – Scientific benefit of Open Science practices and their impact in society such as coping with crises – Open Science education and science communication to different target groups in the broad public.”
Organised by: Leibniz Research Alliance Open Science

MARCH 2021

3. Workshop Retrodigitalisierung: „OCR – Prozesse und Entwicklungen“
01.03.21, Online-Event
“Digitalisierung bietet neue Erschließungsmöglichkeiten, auch und vor allem durch gute Texterkennungsprogramme. Die Optical Character Recognition (OCR) ist ein Werkzeug, von dessen Qualität die Durchsuchbarkeit von Texten maßgeblich beeinflusst wird. Der Workshop befasst sich daher mit Prozessen und Entwicklungen in der OCR – einem wichtigen Bestandteil aller Digitalisierungsprojekte.”
Organised by: ZB MED, TIB, ZBW and Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz

Open Data Day 2021
06.03.21, Online-Event
“Open Data Day is an annual celebration of open data all over the world. Groups from around the world create local events on the day where they will use open data in their communities. It is an opportunity to show the benefits of open data and encourage the adoption of open data policies in government, business and civil society.”
Organised by: Open Knowledge Foundation

2. Bibliothekspolitischer Bundeskongress: Bibliotheken im digitalen Wandel: Orte der Partizipation und des gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalts
26.03.21, Online-Event
“Bibliotheken im digitalen Wandel: Orte der Partizipation und des gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalts“ – miteinander über bibliothekspolitische Fragen ins Gespräch zu kommen.”
Organised by: German Library Association (dbv)

APRIL 2021

Webinar Serie: German-Dutch dialogue on the future of libraries: Central services for public libraries
12.04.21, Online-Event
“The national library (KB) in the Netherlands offers central digital services to public libraries and to patrons as well. How these services were initiated in the past and how the situation is currently will be presented and compared with the situation in Germany. Because of the political system and the cultural sovereignty of the federal states, the support of smaller public libraries in Germany is not centralized, but so called “Fachstellen” in various federal states offer services to their libraries. This system, its tasks and services are presented – decentralised or centralised support for public libraries – what are the advantages and disadvantages? And what effects will the pandemic have to these services in the future? How will the idea of the third place be connected with the need to offer mobile services for the library users during and after corona?”
Organised by: Erasmus University Library Rotterdam

Open Access Barcamp 2021
22.04.21 – 23.04.2021, Online-Event
“The participants themselves will create a varied program and discuss Open Access topics. For example, the implementation of DEAL contracts, the persistence of publication funds, Open Access monographs, or Open Access in specific disciplines and in the arts could be addressed.”
Organised by: Communication, Information, Media Centre (KIM) of the University of Konstanz as part of the open-access.network project.

MAY 2021

IASSIST 2021: Data by Design – Building a Sustainable Data Culture
May, Online-Event
“The conference theme, “Data by Design: Building a Sustainable Data Culture”, emphasizes two core values embedded in the culture of Gothenburg and Sweden: design and sustainability. We invite you to explore these topics further, and discuss what they could mean to data communities. As a member of IASSIST, you are already part of at least one data community. Your other data communities may be across departments, within organizations, or among groups in different countries. How are these groups helping design a culture of practices around data that will persist across organizations and over time?”
Organised by: Swedish National Data Service (SND)

Library Publishing Virtual Forum
10.05.21 – 14.05.21 Online-Event
“This is an annual conference bringing together representatives from libraries engaged in (or considering) publishing initiatives to define and address major questions and challenges; to identify and document collaborative opportunities; and to strengthen and promote this community of practice.”
Organised by: Library Publishing Coalition (LPC)

JUNE 2021

Deutscher Bibliothekarstag: forward to far
15.06.21 – 18.06.21, Bremen (Germany)
“Alternative room concepts, Inventory management, Library management, Library education, Blended Library Concepts, Community building, Digitale editions, Digitization of the teaching, Discovery and eBooks, Electronic Resource Management – and much more.”
Organised by: The Association of German Librarians (VDB – Verein Deutscher Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare) and Berufsverband Information Bibliothek e.V. (BIB)

IASSIST 2021/CESSDA: Data by Design – Building a Sustainable Data Culture
30.06.21 – 02.07.21, Gothenburg (Sweden)
“The conference theme, “Data by Design: Building a Sustainable Data Culture”, emphasizes two core values embedded in the culture of Gothenburg and Sweden: design and sustainability. We invite you to explore these topics further, and discuss what they could mean to data communities. As a member of IASSIST, you are already part of at least one data community. Your other data communities may be across departments, within organizations, or among groups in different countries. How are these groups helping design a culture of practices around data that will persist across organizations and over time?”
Organised by: Swedish National Data Service (SND)

JULY 2021

ICOSRP 2021: International Conference on Open Science Research Philosophy
19.07.21 – 20.07.21, Helsinki (Finland)
“All aspects of Open Science Research Philosophy.”
Organised by: International Research Conference

SEPTEMBER 2021

OA-Tage 2021
27.09.21 – 29.09.21 Bern (Switzerland)
“Open Access und Open Science.”
Organised by: open-access.network

OCTOBER 2021

FORCE2021
18.10.21 – 20.10.21 San Sebastián (Spain)
“At a FORCE11 annual conference stakeholders come together for an open discussion, on an even playing field, to talk about changing the ways scholarly and scientific information is communicated, shared and used. Researchers, publishers, librarians, computer scientists, informaticians, funders, educators, citizens, and others attend the FORCE11 meeting with a view to supporting the realization of promising new ideas and identifying new potential collaborators.”
Organised by: Force11

Events 2021: How to stay up to date

These are our event tips for the Open Science and library world for 2021. Of course, there will be more exciting conferences, workshops, barcamps and other formats in the course of the year. We will collect them for you in our event calendar on ZBW MediaTalk! To keep up to date with interesting events, you can either check there from time to time or subscribe to our newsletter, in which we will regularly inform you about new highlights on the Open Science and library event horizon: sign up for the ZBW MediaTalk newsletter.

Is an event missing?

Do you have an event tip that is not yet listed in our event calendar? Then we would be happy if you would let us know.

Further reading tips for event organisers:

Do you organise events yourself and are looking for tips on how to make them even better? We have been dealing with this more frequently lately:

• Online Events: Mastering Hurdles on the Path to a Digital Future – the Example of the YES! 2020.
• The YES! Spirit: Activating a Young Community of Users and Transferring Knowledge.
• Libraries and online events, part 1: How to plan a successful event.
• Libraries and online events, part 2: How to conduct successful conferences and meetings.
• Libraries and online events, part 3: How online workshops encourage new ideas and collaboration.

Decision-making aids for event attendance: highlights 2020

Despite Corona, there were many conferences, workshops, barcamps & co. worth visiting in 2020. We wrote about some of them in ZBW MediaTalk. So if you are thinking about attending one of the events we recommend, our review will certainly help you make your decision:

• Barcamp@GeNeMe’2020: Open Science in Times of Crisis.
• InnOAccess-Workshops: Publishing Free-of-Charge Open Access Journals Sustainably.
• The YES! Spirit: Activating a Young Community of Users and Transferring Knowledge.
• Open Access Days 2020: Highlights & Tips” .
• LIBER 2020 Online: Building Trust with Research Libraries.
• Hackathon Coding.Waterkant: How to improve library services through chatbots and artificial intelligence.
• Barcamp Open Science: Learning to Make a Difference.
• #OERcamp 2020: Making Open Educational Resources an Experience.
• Workshop: How to Make Open Science Practice Attractive in the Economic Sciences.

This text has been translated from German.